Without going into too much painful detail, we had a mishap several week-ends ago. While working with sand bag crews on the Mississippi River, the truck and camper fell into the flood waters as a road collapsed. Because of a number of issues dealing with the wrecker truck, we had to release the camper as the truck was reeled up over the bank. The good news is that the truck is as good as new after a thorough rinsing, inspection of brakes, etc. The bad news is that the camper was thoroughly drowned. A lot of people had far worse trouble than we did, so we consider ourselves lucky. The floods are ongoing as I write.
Our planned trip to Montana in June is called off. heh.
However, I have now convinced my dear Jane that its time to really update the TC. After drying for several days we pulled out the interior. Amazingly the Zolatone paint that I had applied last year is good as new after a cleaning.
Without burdening the TC family overmuch, I'd like to ask some advice other than don't park too near a flood :-).
My DW was overjoyed that I had a plan for the bathroom: a composting toilet developed by Nature's Head http://www.natureshead.net/. Our holding tank was practically unusable and there was no real grey water tank on the 67 Avion. Our plan is to rip out the bathroom and install one of these and converting the blackwater to a greywater tank. Any experience with this?
Finally, the roof. I admit that I have not really done the work I should have. Now, I need to remove the various sealants on the roof and repair it. We are also setting up for a solar installation. Any advice as to this?
Here's hoping I have posted the pictures correctly. And many thanks in advance for your advice.
Our planned trip to Montana in June is called off. heh.
However, I have now convinced my dear Jane that its time to really update the TC. After drying for several days we pulled out the interior. Amazingly the Zolatone paint that I had applied last year is good as new after a cleaning.
Without burdening the TC family overmuch, I'd like to ask some advice other than don't park too near a flood :-).
My DW was overjoyed that I had a plan for the bathroom: a composting toilet developed by Nature's Head http://www.natureshead.net/. Our holding tank was practically unusable and there was no real grey water tank on the 67 Avion. Our plan is to rip out the bathroom and install one of these and converting the blackwater to a greywater tank. Any experience with this?
Finally, the roof. I admit that I have not really done the work I should have. Now, I need to remove the various sealants on the roof and repair it. We are also setting up for a solar installation. Any advice as to this?
Here's hoping I have posted the pictures correctly. And many thanks in advance for your advice.
The molds are filled with molten aluminium.
As cast
Cleaned up
Painted
Finished nameplate.
I haven't decided weather to reshape the grab handle or finish it as is but either way its not done yet.
Rastaman, that makes sense. I was afraid I would have creased the skin by bending too far(or just loosing my temper).
Thanks for the visual D1
Had to take a break from sawdust and Trempro for a day. I had read in an earlier post about someone casting a new rear grab handle because the original was to pitted to re-chrome. Couldn't find the post but figured I'd fire up the foundry.
Figured it would be easier to just make a new handle pattern from maple.
Petrobond sand mold
The nameplates were kind of rough also.
My furnace 'Ferrous Bueller'
Figured it would be easier to just make a new handle pattern from maple.
Petrobond sand mold
The nameplates were kind of rough also.
My furnace 'Ferrous Bueller'
Howdy!
I found these elevator bolts worked beautifully. I did not want any protrusion of
the bolt head since I left the wings naked. I also wanted maximum strenghth
without a steel plate(which stablelift suggested). They worked prefectly.
Silver, voids I am refering to are inside your fabricated panels.
Expoxy them together is the way to go.
Does anyone have advice on airlift bags? I am looking to gain
a couple of inches to go offroad. Any suggestions. My jacks clear
the road by maybe 8in. I need more height.
Just pulled the trigger on a MT60 combi Engel, it looks to fit
perfectly, and will add lots of space to my little portable Engel.
Eating is the ultimate luxury!
I found these elevator bolts worked beautifully. I did not want any protrusion of
the bolt head since I left the wings naked. I also wanted maximum strenghth
without a steel plate(which stablelift suggested). They worked prefectly.
Silver, voids I am refering to are inside your fabricated panels.
Expoxy them together is the way to go.
Does anyone have advice on airlift bags? I am looking to gain
a couple of inches to go offroad. Any suggestions. My jacks clear
the road by maybe 8in. I need more height.
Just pulled the trigger on a MT60 combi Engel, it looks to fit
perfectly, and will add lots of space to my little portable Engel.
Eating is the ultimate luxury!
Rastaman wrote:
So.....I have a question...My wings are complete, before I go any further. What are you guys using for tie-down points. Are the jack stand brackets being used or do I need to install separate tie-down hooks?
Could I used an 'eye bolt' for one of the jack mount bolts. My stands are going to be bolted through 2 sheets of 3/4 ply with a piece of 1/8th aluminium plate between jack and the body on the outside.
Inside the bolts go through alum plate also.
We tackled these issues a while back, so I think I'm recalling the key ideas.
My tie down points were in very bad condition with the wood having decayed all around.
What is important to think about is that the tie downs have dynamic forces while the jack stands experience (for the most part) stable loads. If you use the Torklift Fastguns, for instance, they are spring loaded tie downs that ease the sudden strains caused by bumps or other shifts in the road.
So, its wise to keep the structure for the tie down point quite strong - but not to the extent that the whole bottom of the camper can be torn out by an extreme force. At least that was my thinking.
The jack stand supports were built with a very wide piece of metal, after the wings were repaired, to spread the pressure over a larger surface.
On the inside you can see the tie down plate on the left and the jack stand plate on the right.
I think in retrospect I should have given more space to the tie down points. However, I have had no problems with the construction as illustrated by my crash at Muley Point that tore up a Fastgun, but left the camper intact.
By the way, D1, the meet-up at Muley Point is in May......
Gents, in response to recent posts...
Rastaman, here's a pic of my tie down arrangement when I was still planning to keep Argo a truck camper. It's a SS marine bow eye bolted thru the base of the jack plate. It worked quite well and, at 2500 pound SWL, I had a high degree of confidence in it's ability to keep everything together. I like the idea of distributing the force thru two bolt/nut attachments rather than a single eyebolt. My only advice would be to be certain your mounting spot will allow easy attachment of the actual tie down.
And another
Silver, I have high hopes for the aluminum interior corners. Here's a pic of the construction paper stage of the layout. At this point I was laying out on the plastic liner. It ended up being much more accurate to lay out on the ribs after I'd removed the liner. But you can get the idea here...
As for the Argo process, I replaced the aluminum frame channel that ran across the truck chassis because they were deflecting too much under the load of Argo. We made steel cross pieces using heavy wall rectangular tubing. It's plenty strong and stiff. I kept the aluminum channel that runs lengthwise under the actual box of Argo. I just set Argo onto the newly engineered frame yesterday. No deflection now.
I have now begin the layout of the side storage box assembly. You may recall that this old customized rig in SoCal was the basic inspiration:
I was feeling daunted by the prospect of the design and layout. I called truck service body builders on the west coast to see if I could get one built. Finally I just bit the bullet and started mocking up what I want. Here are two approaches:
This is the straight back approach and conforms to the line of the bottom of the bustle. I'm trying to keep the bustle because I customized it to create a very nice fiberglass gray water tank inside it. But this line wastes a lot of potential storage, which is woefully lacking in Argo, so I brought the box down to the same bottom elevation as the cab:
This is a more conventional use of space and gives me lots more room for an eventual layout something like this:
I've studied the stock doors on the outside of Argo to come up with a door construction detail for these compartments. I found that propane and fridge doors were made of .037" stock. The water heater door was made of .060" stock. Thicker will certainly be better for my storage doors. I'm going to build the water tanks into the curved front ends of the storage areas. I reckon I can get about 30 gallons on each side. This offers the advantage of the water weight being low and in the middle of the rig.
I'm going to be glad to get these compartments built and installed so I can bolt Argo to the truck and get on with the interior. If I'm going to make it to Muley Point this summer, time is of the essense!
Dick
Rastaman, here's a pic of my tie down arrangement when I was still planning to keep Argo a truck camper. It's a SS marine bow eye bolted thru the base of the jack plate. It worked quite well and, at 2500 pound SWL, I had a high degree of confidence in it's ability to keep everything together. I like the idea of distributing the force thru two bolt/nut attachments rather than a single eyebolt. My only advice would be to be certain your mounting spot will allow easy attachment of the actual tie down.
And another
Silver, I have high hopes for the aluminum interior corners. Here's a pic of the construction paper stage of the layout. At this point I was laying out on the plastic liner. It ended up being much more accurate to lay out on the ribs after I'd removed the liner. But you can get the idea here...
As for the Argo process, I replaced the aluminum frame channel that ran across the truck chassis because they were deflecting too much under the load of Argo. We made steel cross pieces using heavy wall rectangular tubing. It's plenty strong and stiff. I kept the aluminum channel that runs lengthwise under the actual box of Argo. I just set Argo onto the newly engineered frame yesterday. No deflection now.
I have now begin the layout of the side storage box assembly. You may recall that this old customized rig in SoCal was the basic inspiration:
I was feeling daunted by the prospect of the design and layout. I called truck service body builders on the west coast to see if I could get one built. Finally I just bit the bullet and started mocking up what I want. Here are two approaches:
This is the straight back approach and conforms to the line of the bottom of the bustle. I'm trying to keep the bustle because I customized it to create a very nice fiberglass gray water tank inside it. But this line wastes a lot of potential storage, which is woefully lacking in Argo, so I brought the box down to the same bottom elevation as the cab:
This is a more conventional use of space and gives me lots more room for an eventual layout something like this:
I've studied the stock doors on the outside of Argo to come up with a door construction detail for these compartments. I found that propane and fridge doors were made of .037" stock. The water heater door was made of .060" stock. Thicker will certainly be better for my storage doors. I'm going to build the water tanks into the curved front ends of the storage areas. I reckon I can get about 30 gallons on each side. This offers the advantage of the water weight being low and in the middle of the rig.
I'm going to be glad to get these compartments built and installed so I can bolt Argo to the truck and get on with the interior. If I'm going to make it to Muley Point this summer, time is of the essense!
Dick
